Maternal Instincts Belong to All Animals

Humans have claimed so much over non-human animals; we deny them everything that’s natural to them. We manipulate them, mutilate them, enslave them and deny them their most basic, basic desires. Most egregiously, we deny mothers their own babies. We deny them the most basic desire to nurse their babies and groom them and protect them.

This is especially the case in our exploitation of cows for their milk and you can also see this in the exploitation of female horses (mares) who are kept pregnant to produce a particular hormone that is used in the production of Premarin, which is an estrogen replacement therapy for post-menopausal women. Though there are ways to produce this with synthetic materials, which are just as effective, instead, Wyeth-Ayerst, the company that manufactures Premarin, uses the urine of pregnant mares. The word Premarin is an acronymn of “Pregnant Mare’s Urine.” Just for this product, 80,000 horses live their entire lives penned in tiny stalls, unable to turn around or meaningfully lie down, they’re deprived of water because it would dilute their urine, they’re repeatedly impregnated, and they’re continuously connected to plumbing collecting that collects the urine. When they can no longer produce adequately, they are slaughtered, and the babies of these mares are either put in stalls or slaughtered.

There is absolutely no way to justify this stuff. Humans can claim no moral superiority over other animals when we do this kind of thing willfully and knowingly, particularly when it’s not necessary. How can we say that we’re the most advanced species on Earth when we continually choose profits over principles? How can we say we’re the most advanced species on Earth when we use and abuse animals, especially when alternatives are available? We simply cannot claim to be the "higher" species. And we certainly do not have the corner on motherhood.

Despite our desperate attempt to remove ourselves from our non-human brethren, we are animals, and we have a lot more animal instincts than we like to admit. Every woman will tell you that her drive to protect her young - what we call maternal instinct – is pure and fierce and real. I mean we call it an “instinct” – the maternal instinct.

And any right-minded person would agree that this extinct exists in ALL animals. If we know that to be true and real, then how can we so arrogantly deny animals their desire to fulfill that very basic, fierce, real, powerful instinct? I wonder if it's because we come to call the maternal instinct in humans “love” and if we call it “love” in non-human animals, we’re accused of anthropomorphizing.

The one thing each and every individual should be able to claim is the protection of his or her own body. To violate someone’s body is the most egregious crime we can commit. And we do it again and again and again. I think perhaps no animal suffers like the female who endures pregnancy after pregnancy (cows are pregnant as long as humans and horses are pregnant for 11 months) only to have her baby dragged away from her. Ask any farmer what the experience is like taking a calf away from his or her mother. Every instinct of the mother is in full gear, as she tries desperately to take her baby back but is powerless to do so because the humans have already decided against this. She loses – everytime.

Susie Coston is the director of Farm Sanctuary’s New York shelter and has many, many wonderful stories to tell, including one about Bertha and Robin. In 2004, Farm Sanctuary helped rescue 26 cattle from a cruelty case in Pennsylvania. There were 4 calves and 22 cows.

When the cattle first arrived, some of the cows were pregnant, and one of them was Bertha, who after giving birth, didn’t want to nurse her baby. She kept pushing him away, and the staff learned very quickly that it was because her mastitis was so bad that it was really painful for her to nurse.

Mastitis is a painful infection of the udders that affects one in four dairy cows and it manifests itself as an infected, (sometimes hugely) enlarged udder. Though Bertha was being kept on a “beef” operation, she had no doubt been used for many years as a breeding cow and had many babies taken away from her over the years to be killed for steak or prime rib. She most likely developed her mastitis from the filth that she was forced to live in before she was rescued.

So, Bertha couldn’t nurse her baby boy, who was named Robin, but she would still watch the staff very carefully when they bottle-fed him and make sure he was okay. Then one day, when her mastitis was cleared up and she felt no pain, she nursed Robin for the first time. It was a very emotional day for everyone, as they watched her able to feed her baby herself for the first time – and groom him and tend to him.

Three years later, Robin is now 2,000 pounds, and whenever he gets scared, he runs over to his mother and nurses. He’s 2,000 pounds, and the first thing he does when he’s nervous or scared (when he hears a large truck or something like that) is run over to nurse from his mom.

And this bond goes both ways.

Sadly, Bertha has cancer and is dying. She’s about 20 years old now (cattle can live up to 25 years, but we kill them at anywhere from 1 day young (for "bob veal") to 16 weeks (in the case of "veal") to 4 or 5 years (in the case of dairy cows). The first time Bertha was brought to the hospital, she was so upset that she wouldn’t eat. She was just really depressed. So in response, they decided to bring Robin to the hospital to be with his mom, which is no small task, and Bertha was fine. This is the bond they have. This is the bond of mothers and their children. It doesn't matter what species you are.